climate change phenomenon (have minor large water false)

The biggest reason why I wont agree with this climate change phenomenon
is “they kept us in the dark”, and didn’t tell us what they intended to
do…So we could see for ourselves. That in itself causes suspicion .
Then you ask yourself, why etc….
If you can argue all these points away, you’re a better spin doctor than
I am….
Please pass this on….

I am open to convincing arguments, but not the c*** without being
properly informed…
I think thats reasonable.

HERE are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European
Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made:

1) There is no real scientific proof that the current warming is
caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man s activity.
2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute
less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle
of the earth during geological history.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth s history came around 800 years before
rises in CO2 levels.

4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions
but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

5) Throughout the Earth s history, temperatures have often been warmer
than now and CO2 levels have often been higher more than ten times as
high.

7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last
hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term,
natural climate trends.

8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favourable
reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.

9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists in a scandal known
as Climate-gate – suggest that that has been manipulated to exaggerate
global warming

10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is
responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past
hundred years.

11) Politicians and activiists claim rising sea levels are a direct
cause of global warming but sea levels rates have been increasing
steadily since the last ice age 10,000 ago

12) Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the School of
Oriental and African Studies in London says climate change is too
complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds

13) Peter Lilley MP said last month that fewer people in Britain than
in any other country believe in the importance of global warming. That
is despite the fact that our Government and our political
class predominantly are more committed to it than their counterparts in
any other country in the world .

14) In pursuit of the global warming rhetoric, wind farms will do very
little to nothing to reduce CO2 emissions

15) Professor Plimer, Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at the
University of Adelaide, stated that the idea of taking a single trace
gas in the atmosphere, accusing it and finding it guilty of total
responsibility for climate change, is an absurdity

16) A Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist, Willie Soon,
said he is embarrassed and puzzled by the shallow science in papers
that support the proposition that the earth faces a climate crisis
caused by global warming.

17) The science of what determines the earth s temperature is in fact
far from settled or understood.

18) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, CO2 is a minor greenhouse
gas, unlike water vapour which is tied to climate concerns, and which we
can t even pretend to control

19) A petition by scientists trying to tell the world that the political
and media portrayal of global warming is false was put forward in the
Heidelberg Appeal in 1992. Today, more than 4,000 signatories, including
72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries have signed it.

20) It is claimed the average global temperature increased at a
dangerously fast rate in the 20th century but the recent rate of average
global temperature rise has been between 1 and 2 degrees C per century –
within natural rates

21) Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Scientific Council of
the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw, Poland
says the earth s temperature has more to do with cloud cover and water
vapor than CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

22) There is strong evidence from solar studies which suggests that the
Earth s current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling
over the next few decades

23) It is myth that receding glaciers are proof of global warming as
glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for many centuries

24) It is a falsehood that the earth s poles are warming because that is
natural variation and while the western Arctic may be getting somewhat
warmer we also see that the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder

25) The IPCC claims climate driven impacts on biodiversity are
significant and of key relevance but those claims are simply not
supported by scientific research

26) The IPCC threat of climate change to the world s species does not
make sense as wild species are at least one million years old, which
means they have all been through hundreds of climate cycles

27) Research goes strongly against claims that CO2-induced global
warming would cause catastrophic disintegration of the Greenland and
Antarctic Ice Sheets.

28) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels are our
best hope of raising crop yields to feed an ever-growing population

29) The biggest climate change ever experienced on earth took place
around 700 million years ago

30) The slight increase in temperature which has been observed since
1900 is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term natural
climate cycles

32) Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over
the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long
term rate of increase in global temperatures

33) Today s CO2 concentration of around 385 ppm is very low compared to
most of the earth s history we actually live in a carbon-deficient
atmosphere

34) It is a myth that CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas because
greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume, and CO2
constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere

35) It is a myth that computer models verify that CO2 increases will
cause significant global warming because computer models can be made to
verify anything

36) There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that
global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes

37) One statement deleted from a UN report in 1996 stated that none of
the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute
the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases

38) The world warmed by 0.07 +/- 0.07 degrees C from 1999 to 2008, not
the 0.20 degrees C expected by the IPCC

39) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is likely
that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more
intense but there has been no increase in the intensity or frequency of
tropical cyclones globally

40) Rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be shown not only to have a
negligible effect on the Earth s many ecosystems, but in some cases to
be a positive help to many organisms

41) Researchers who compare and contrast climate change impact on
civilizations found warm periods are beneficial to mankind and cold
periods harmful

42) The Met Office asserts we are in the hottest decade since records
began but this is precisely what the world should expect if the climate
is cyclical

43) Rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more
resistant to drought and pests

44) The historical increase in the air s CO2 content has improved human
nutrition by raising crop yields during the past 150 years

45) The increase of the air s CO2 content has probably helped lengthen
human lifespans since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

46) The IPCC alleges that climate change currently contributes to the
global burden of disease and premature deaths but the evidence shows
that higher temperatures and rising CO2 levels has helped global populations

47) In May of 2004, the Russian Academy of Sciences published a report
concluding that the Kyoto Protocol has no scientific grounding at all.

48) The Climate-gate scandal pointed to a expensive public campaign of
disinformation and the denigration of scientists who opposed the belief
that CO2 emissions were causing climate change

49) The head of Britain s climate change watchdog has predicted
households will need to spend up to 15,000 on a full energy efficiency
makeover if the Government is to meet its ambitious targets for cutting
carbon emissions.

50) Wind power is unlikely to be the answer to our energy needs. The
wind power industry argues that there are no direct subsidies but it
involves a total subsidy of as much as 60 per MWh which falls directly
on electricity consumers. This burden will grow in line with attempts to
achieve Wind power targets, according to a recent OFGEM report.

51) Wind farms are not an efficient way to produce energy. The British
Wind Energy Association (BWEA) accepts a figure of 75 per cent back-up
power is required.

52) Global temperatures are below the low end of IPCC predictions not at
at the top end of IPCC estimates

53) Climate alarmists have raised the concern over acidification of the
oceans but Tom Segalstad from Oslo University in Norway , and others,
have noted that the composition of ocean water including CO2, calcium,
and water can act as a buffering agent in the acidification of the oceans.

54) The UN s IPCC computer models of human-caused global warming predict
the emergence of a hotspot in the upper troposphere over the tropics.
Former researcher in the Australian Department of Climate Change,
David Evans, said there is no evidence of such a hotspot

55) The argument that climate change is a of result of global warming
caused by human activity is the argument of flat Earthers.

56) The manner in which US President Barack Obama sidestepped Congress
to order emission cuts shows how undemocratic and irrational the entire
international decision-making process has become with regards to
emission-target setting.

57) William Kininmonth, a former head of the National Climate Centre and

1C. Such warming is well within the envelope of variation experienced
during the past 10,000 years and insignificant in the context of glacial
cycles during the past million years, when Earth has been predominantly
very cold and covered by extensive ice sheets.

58) Canada has shown the world targets derived from the existing Kyoto
commitments were always unrealistic and did not work for the country.

59) In the lead up to the Copenhagen summit, David Davis MP said of
previous climate summits, at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997
that many had promised greater cuts, but neither happened , but we are
continuing along the same lines.

60) The UK s environmental policy has a long-term price tag of about
55 billion, before taking into account the impact on its economic growth.

61) The UN s panel on climate change warned that Himalayan glaciers
could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035. J. Graham Cogley a
professor at Ontario Trent University, claims this inaccurate stating
the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than
300 years.

62) Under existing Kyoto obligations the EU has attempted to claim
success, while actually increasing emissions by 13 per cent, according
to Lord Lawson. In addition the EU has pursued this scheme by purchasing
offsets from countries such as China paying them billions of dollars
to destroy atmospheric pollutants, such as CFC-23, which were
manufactured purely in order to be destroyed.

63) It is claimed that the average global temperature was relatively
unchanging in pre-industrial times but sky-rocketed since 1900, and will
increase by several degrees more over the next 100 years according to
Penn State University researcher Michael Mann. There is no convincing
empirical evidence that past climate was unchanging, nor that 20th
century changes in average global temperature were unusual or unnatural.

64) Michael Mann of Penn State University has actually shown that the
Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age did in fact exist, which
contrasts with his earlier work which produced the hockey stick graph
which showed a constant temperature over the past thousand years or so
followed by a recent dramatic upturn.

65) The globe s current approach to climate change in which major
industrialised countries agree to nonsensical targets for their CO2
emissions by a given date, as it has been under the Kyoto system, is
very expensive.

66) The Climate-gate scandal revealed that a scientific team had
emailed one another about using a trick for the sake of concealing a
decline in temperatures when looking at the history of the Earth s
temperature.

67) Global temperatures have not risen in any statistically-significant
sense for 15 years and have actually been falling for nine years. The
Climate-gate scandal revealed a scientific team had expressed dismay
at the fact global warming was contrary to their predictions and
admitted their inability to explain it was a travesty .

68) The IPCC predicts that a warmer planet will lead to more extreme
weather, including drought, flooding, storms, snow, and wildfires. But
over the last century, during which the IPCC claims the world
experienced more rapid warming than any time in the past two millennia,
the world did not experience significantly greater trends in any of
these extreme weather events.

69) In explaining the average temperature standstill we are currently
experiencing, the Met Office Hadley Centre ran a series of computer
climate predictions and found in many of the computer runs there were
decade-long standstills but none for 15 years so it expects global
warming to resume swiftly.

70) Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, wrote: The notion of a static, unchanging
climate is foreign to the history of the Earth or any other planet with
a fluid envelope. Such hysteria (over global warming) simply represents
the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of
the public to the substitution of repetition for truth.

71) Despite the 1997 Kyoto Protocol s status as the flagship of the
fight against climate change it has been a failure.

72) The first phase of the EU s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which
ran from 2005 to 2007 was a failure. Huge over-allocation of permits to
pollute led to a collapse in the price of carbon from 33 to just 0.20
per tonne meaning the system did not reduce emissions at all.

73) The EU trading scheme, to manage carbon emissions has completely
failed and actually allows European businesses to duck out of making
their emissions reductions at home by offsetting, which means paying for
cuts to be made overseas instead.

74) To date cap and trade carbon markets have done almost nothing to
reduce emissions.

75) In the United States , the cap-and-trade is an approach designed to
control carbon emissions and will impose huge costs upon American
citizens via a carbon tax on all goods and services produced in the
United States. The average family of four can expect to pay an
additional $1700, or 1,043, more each year. It is predicted that the
United States will lose more than 2 million jobs as the result of
cap-and-trade schemes.

76) Dr Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of
Alabama in Huntsville, has indicated that out of the 21 climate models
tracked by the IPCC the differences in warming exhibited by those models
is mostly the result of different strengths of positive cloud feedback
and that increasing CO2 is insufficient to explain global-average
warming in the last 50 to 100 years.

77) Why should politicians devote our scarce resources in a globally
competitive world to a false and ill-defined problem, while ignoring the
real problems the entire planet faces, such as: poverty, hunger, disease
or terrorism.

78) A proper analysis of ice core records from the past 650,000 years
demonstrates that temperature increases have come before, and not
resulted from, increases in CO2 by hundreds of years.

79) Since the cause of global warming is mostly natural, then there is
in actual fact very little we can do about it. (We are still not able to
control the sun).

80) A substantial number of the panel of 2,500 climate scientists on the
United Nation s International Panel on Climate Change, which created a
statement on scientific unanimity on climate change and man-made global
warming, were found to have serious concerns.

81) The UK s Met Office has been forced this year to re-examine 160
years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the
science on man-made global warming has been shattered by revelations
about the data.

82) Politicians and activists push for renewable energy sources such as
wind turbines under the rhetoric of climate change, but it is
essentially about money under the system of Renewable Obligations.
Much of the money is paid for by consumers in electricity bills. It
amounts to 1 billion a year.

83) The Climate-gate scandal revealed that a scientific team had
tampered with their own data so as to conceal inconsistencies and errors.

84) The Climate-gate scandal revealed that a scientific team had
campaigned for the removal of a learned journal s editor, solely because
he did not share their willingness to debase science for political purposes.

85) Ice-core data clearly show that temperatures change centuries before
concentrations of atmospheric CO2 change. Thus, there appears to be
little evidence for insisting that changes in concentrations of CO2 are
the cause of past temperature and climate change.

86) There are no experimentally verified processes explaining how CO2
concentrations can fall in a few centuries without falling temperatures
in fact it is changing temperatures which cause changes in CO2
concentrations, which is consistent with experiments that show CO2 is
the atmospheric gas most readily absorbed by water.

87) The Government s Renewable Energy Strategy contains a massive
increase in electricity generation by wind power costing around 4
billion a year over the next twenty years. The benefits will be only 4
to 5 billion overall (not per annum). So costs will outnumber benefits
by a range of between eleven and seventeen times.

88) Whilst CO2 levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and
otherwise, just as they have throughout history, the CO2 content of the
atmosphere has increased since the beginning of the industrial
revolution, and the growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years.

89) It is a myth that CO2 is a pollutant, because nitrogen forms 80% of
our atmosphere and human beings could not live in 100% nitrogen either:
CO2 is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is and CO2 is essential to life.

90) Politicians and climate activists make claims to rising sea levels
but certain members in the IPCC chose an area to measure in Hong Kong
that is subsiding. They used the record reading of 2.3 mm per year rise
of sea level.

91) The accepted global average temperature statistics used by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based
warming has occurred since 1998.

92) If one factors in non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events
and large volcanic eruptions, lower atmosphere satellite-based
temperature measurements show little, if any, global warming since 1979,
a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

93) US President Barack Obama pledged to cut emissions by 2050 to equal
those of 1910 when there were 92 million Americans. In 2050, there will
be 420 million Americans, so Obama s promise means that emissions per
head will be approximately what they were in 1875. It simply will not
happen.

94) The European Union has already agreed to cut emissions by 20 percent
to 2020, compared with 1990 levels, and is willing to increase the
target to 30 percent. However, these are unachievable and the EU has
already massively failed with its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), as EU
emissions actually rose by 0.8 percent from 2005 to 2006 and are known
to be well above the Kyoto goal.

95) Australia has stated it wants to slash greenhouse emissions by up to
25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, but the pledges were so unpopular
that the country s Senate has voted against the carbon trading Bill, and
the Opposition s Party leader has now been ousted by a climate change
sceptic.

96) Canada plans to reduce emissions by 20 percent compared with 2006
levels by 2020, representing approximately a 3 percent cut from 1990
levels but it simultaneously defends its Alberta tar sands emissions and
its record as one of the world s highest per-capita emissions setters.

97) India plans to reduce the ratio of emissions to production by 20-25
percent compared with 2005 levels by 2020, but all Government officials
insist that since India has to grow for its development and poverty
alleviation, it has to emit, because the economy is driven by carbon.

98) The Leipzig Declaration in 1996, was signed by 110 scientists who
said: We along with many of our fellow citizens are apprehensive
about the climate treaty conference scheduled for Kyoto, Japan, in
December 1997 and based on all the evidence available to us, we cannot
subscribe to the politically inspired world view that envisages climate
catastrophes and calls for hasty actions.

99) A US Oregon Petition Project stated We urge the United States
government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in
Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The
proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder
the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare
of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human
release of CO2, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will,
in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth s
atmosphere and disruption of the Earth s climate.

100) A report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate
Change concluded We find no support for the IPCC s claim that climate
observations during the twentieth century are either unprecedented or
provide evidence of an anthropogenic effect on climate.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL…………….

17.12.09, 12:28am

Regarding this article, I say “FOLLOW THE MONEY”. These Climate Change
Guru’s are predisposed to promote “Global Warming”, in spite of all the
evidence to the contrary. They depend upon massive government and
private grants to fund their “research” and to live comfortable lives.
Who amongst us would not be tempted to promote such drivel if we thought
“it might be a good idea anyway….even if we ARE fudging the data!”
Would we REALLY say that Global Warming is not man-made if it meant we
would lose our income? Where would we go? What would we do? Certainly
not me.
We need to stop acting like sheep and start doing some critical
thinking. It is obvious to me that there will ALWAYS be climate
change…..but to the extent we can affect it……it would be like
peeing in the ocean and expecting it to change the water level.

David hare-sco 2012-02-07 22:54:13

Tell me did you check out any one of these assertions or did you just spam
them on without another thought? How is that “being open to convincing
arguments”?

If you did verify any one of them that deals with science (since the slurs
and conspiracies are unverifiable) tell us which one and present the
evidence. Make a “convincing argument” so that we are “properly informed”,
I am not asking for a tract covering all 100 just one to do with actual
science.

And by the by who wrote this? Do you think it would be fair to acknowledge
them?

…. snip 100 units of propaganda …..

Yes yes it’s all a great global conspiracy. I don’t suppose you have any
evidence?

What you completely fail to grasp is that if it was all fake any scientists
who could produce the evidence of the faking would become instant
celebrities and have gained enormous career prestige. But no you prefer to
assume that around the world none of them will break ranks and take that
prize. You don’t understand science or scientists one bit. Scientists
rarely get rich, they live to learn and to understand, to be the best in
their field and beat the other guy to it and if necessary to prove the other
bloke is an idiot. Any conspiracy involving academic fraud on this scale
would leak like a sieve.

Or is it that the blokes in the black cars with radios in their ears have
the dissenters all locked up in gitmo bay?

Show me evidence of data fudging that has any real impact on the situation.

Absolbloodylutely!

It is time for you to lead the way. What critical thinking did you apply to
the above list?

It is obvious to me that there will ALWAYS be climate

One more unsupported assertion.

David

Jonno 2012-02-07 22:54:16

David,
I guess if you peed in the ocean, you would affect the water level.
I am afraid the rest of your arguments hold up like this as well.
Youre a manipulator. Like the rest of your stuff, you have nothing but
hot air.
There will be climate change, but I will no longer support the life
style of those idiots who jet over far and sunder, and say the sky is
falling. Its strange how all this idea came about shorly after major
world financial crisis. It would have something to do with US running
out of cash would it? I have yet to see climate staying the same.
So what if you say the world is flat. I say heretics like you are old
hat. Try changing some. It may make a difference instead of following
scheming people who hold shares in oil and coal corps. It may make a man
out of you.
Happy new year. Its certainly been a happy result for me this year..
Must be someone is seeing this scam for what it is. But it aint you….
D*** those Russians eh?

David hare-sco 2012-02-07 22:54:23

Please tell everybody how I have manipulated you or admit that all you have
is empty accusations.

Speaking of hot air, did you notice my repeated requests for you to justify
one thing you posted? I didn’t notice the reply to that.

Well no it wouldn’t but if you feel that you can justify the allegation go
right ahead. Otherwise it is just another pointless slur.

I have yet to see climate staying the same.

This is the most ludicrous and baseless thing you have typed yet. Why on
earth would I be beating on climate change denial if I was following people
making money out of fossil fuel?

Now you are just making things up. Go to bed and post when you are sober.

David

Jonno 2012-02-07 22:54:25

Because you dont check all the facts. Only the ones you want to see.
Those Corps are about compensation for finding alternatives fuels and
handouts.
Perhaps you have you head so far in other places that you haven’t used
that intelligence to understand what they are proposing.

You are making things up. Youre simply annoyed. Illigitimate claims that
I drink have been grossly over estimated. At least when I do, I pay for
my own, and not the public purse.

We cant agree on this, if others cant, who have claims to being smarter.
So dont act like you are intelligent. its not intelligent to do so in
this kind of situation, no one wins. We are at at a stalemate if the
others are.

0tterbot 2012-02-08 05:49:13

well, THAT’S a redundant question! 🙂

still, because there won’t be an answer, i’ll chime in: none!!

i read through the list carefully, because it’s fascinating like joh-speak
is fascinating – the sum total is lots of words, but nothing actually said.
consider the following:
” 95) Australia has stated it wants to slash greenhouse emissions by up to
25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, but the pledges were so unpopular
that the country s Senate has voted against the carbon trading Bill, and
the Opposition s Party leader has now been ousted by a climate change
sceptic.”

hee hee hee hee…!
we’re all australians here, so we actually know for a stony cold fact what
happened there, and the truth is just camoflaged by the joh-speak – it’s not
that the statement is literally untrue (except describing ets legislation as
a “pledge”, which is, of course, ridiculous; and to clarify that while the
ets had mass support amongst the public, its mass support did not include
quite enough members of the federal senate due to party-line voting, and
where it lacked support with either the senate or the public, it was in many
cases due to it not being firm enough, rather than that it was rejected
outright by deniers).

many of the 100 non-points in the list are extremely similar in this way.
(or just useless statements to form a magical total of 100). a more
committed denier could have cobbled together a more persuasive list of 10 &
left it at that – but amongst their ranks, overstatement seems to have
become the order of the day, which then, by extension, blows the credibility
of all of them by association. which i personally find a shame, because it
can be a bit of a worry sometimes if literally everyone agrees about
something – there is nothing bad about some robust debate, provided it is
for good purpose (not just for the fun of arguing). still, with climate
change denialism, a united front is probably not an option, some still deny
outright (in the face of all evidence, refer to the list) and others are
smart enough not to deny the obvious, but quibble about the cause, minor
details, and so forth.

what is also fascinating (besides the joh-speak) is why any denier actually
_would_; it simply makes no sense. a handful are involved with the fossil
fuel industries, but the majority aren’t (indeed, overall, the fossil fuel
industries are seemingly _not_ staffed by deniers!!) the evidence has been
published for anyone to see if they so wish, and as you say, if even one
denier could make his case he’d be a megastar overnight. people don’t accept
the probably reality of human-induced climate change because it benefits
them, they accept it despite the fact that it doesn’t (overall). which
causes me to wonder what’s going on inside the brains of deniers, and it
only gets back to one thing, magical thinking (a neurological phenomenon
normally associated with the under-6 set). yet, none of us would want such a
thing to be true, it’s just one of those things that must be accepted as
highly probable. that we must ditch dependence on fossil fuel isn’t even one
of those things where one has the luxury of an opinion based on ideology,
it’s just a fact that everyone is aware of now; that it must happen some
time between sooner and later, so why maintain the line that human-induced
climate change is simply not true and is, in fact, a _conspiracy_

i saw ian plimer on the telly the other week. it was one of those interviews
that was just so embarrassing to watch that i could barely stand it (i find
it horrible to watch someone making an awful fool of themselves, although
there are crueller people who find it funny). considering how very few
actual names are given in the list, the fact that ian plimer’s is, and
knowing what we know about his ghastly flirtings with fame, makes me wonder.
i am not acquainted with most of the others. if this handful of names
comprises the cutting-edge of climate change denialism in 2009 (if some of
them have not indeed simply been quoted out of original context & aren’t
deniers at all), what hope have they at all? if one relies on the scrapings
from teh bottom of the climate science barrel, how can they hope to make
their case coherently, never mind “win”? if they did “win”, what would they
have won?! what is the prize here for them, exactly?? and is it a better
prize than the majority’s prize, which would be political, social,
nutritional (etc etc) stability, and a lack of damage, and, eventually, a
measurable improvement?

i want to know what the denier’s prize actually is – because best i can work
out they don’t have one. it seems counterintuitive to argue & fight against
an idea that’s well-established, to tire and humiliate oneself, to lose the
respect of others, and so forth, in a fight where one side does not seem to
have a prize in mind, and if there is a prize it would seem to be one they
simply can’t win. if some huffy & self-serving notion, such as “pride” is
the prize they’re fighting for, should they not demonstrate slightly more
now in order to have enough left to have proven, later, that they “won”?

the other thing i want to know is where all these people were 25 years ago
when the subject was first brought up for debate in the public domain.
denialism only got groovy this year, but the horse had already bolted years
ago. does one fight harder & more desperately if one knows the fight is
effectively already over & has been for years?? _that’s_ counterintuitive
_too_. intriguing, it is, viewed from any angle.

if there is an exodus from teh sock drawer overnight & matching influx to
this group, is it our fault for feeding the troll?
🙂
kylie

David hare-sco 2012-02-08 05:49:18

I was starting to wonder if Jonno’s second name was Loki.

David

Farmi 2012-02-08 05:49:23

(snip)

that we must ditch dependence on fossil fuel isn’t even one

I’ve long wondered about both peak oil and climate change and whether there
is a difference in attitudes to both of those things between country and
city dwellers and I’ve finally come down on the side of a distinct
difference. City dwellers tend to witter on about it and say all the right
things, but don’t seem to understand how it applies to them and their
profligate ways. I suspect that only when the water stops flowing out of
thier taps or they can’t get fuel for their fourbies that they might
eventually realise what it really means. (rant mode off)

God wasn’t it appalling! And to think that Abbott is quoting him as a
credible scientist on the subject of climate change! No wonder Abbott got
shot down in flames for giving out the wrong information about the Hadley
Institute’s findings if he was relying on Plimer.

I read the revues of Plimer’s book after that interview and one scientist
who knows him well because he’s at the same uni, made the comment at the end
that Plimer’s book was like the Von Danikan books.

Follow the money is usually the first way of finding out the ‘prize’.

Plimer is a Director of a number of mining companies. I wonder if any of
those Directorships would involve coal mining companies?

because best i can work

B***** ‘pride’. I’d lay pounds to peanuts that money is involved in one way
or another. That could be direct employment in a position of some sort
which atracts remuneration or, in the case of politicians, contributions to
campaign fundings or a multiplicity of other ways to grease palms.

Well he’s already done at least one addy amendment because he’s escaped from
my killfile to post in the last couple of days. I’ll be surprised if there
aren’t more add socks.

0tterbot 2012-02-08 05:49:31

hm, sort of. but sort of not. i do think that dislocation from the natural
world does not help people to see things clearly & the relationships between
them, but i’m also mindful that i completely changed teh way i live whilst
still a city dweller – many city dwellers have, and do. just as they have no
real idea what we are doing, we don’t necessarily keep in touch with what
they are doing either.

plus, i’m sure we both know rural dwellers whose behaviour is as bizarre,
wasteful, and counter-intuitive as the behaviour of a cubbie living in a
mcmansion in kellyville. (unfortunately).

in many ways issues like these don’t really have a country/city divide,
because there are people in both situations who just aren’t seeing or
accepting or caring about things that are going on. i’m not sure the mindset
is locality-based.

i’d also say, however, that as far as i’m aware (& happy to be corrected if
i’ve got it wrong) that the proportion of rural-dwelling outright deniers is
far larger, even though you would expect the reverse!! i offer you the
national party as but one example – i’ve never voted national because i
completely disapprove of their unholy alliance, but used to feel they played
an important role. lately, they’ve degenerated into a pack of troglodyte
rabble who should be entirely ashamed of letting their constituents down so
relentlessly and for so long. even in 2009, the barnaby joyces are saying
“you shouldn’t plant trees on arable land – they just use all the water &
stop the grass from growing” which is the biggest crock of s***
imaginable!!!! i find this simply unbelievable when it’s been shown
repeatedly that the right kind of tree, & enough of them, will not only help
counter wind and erosion, but also spread fertility, break up monoculture,
and keep the surrounding grass green & their zone more fertile. i can
accept the nats might not have much brains, but have they no eyes either?
farming is of necessity going through some big changes, i don’t think that
living in 1956 is going to help anyone, particularly their own constituents.

abbott has himself in a bit of a bind, though; and not only abbott but alby
schultz (whose missive in the goulburn paper yesterday was similarly
embarrassing) and a whole clot of others in the party – the bind being that
on the one hand they are coming up with every reason that current climate
change is not anthropogenic, but _also_ claiming that their climate change
policies will be better than labor’s. clearly, if it’s not anthropogenic, no
need to do anything as there is nothing we could do. if it is, we need to do
things! but walking on both sides of the fence is clearly not tenable, and
cannot possibly make for any sort of proper policy. i think kevin rudd’s a
lame control freak who rarely actually _does_ anything, but at least he’s
not promoting a mixed message.

i can’t imagine i’m the only person who views the libs’ bizarre mixed
message with one eyebrow raised. it’s my position their party is likely to
split completely over this.

you would think so, but deniers say the massive worldwide “conspiracy” is
all about money, so… um…. actually it’s far more likely the famous
deniers are about money – but what of the obscure, suburban deniers? (just
living on easter island in their minds, is my guess).

it’s the weather for thongs, that’s what i say 🙂
kylie

Farmi 2012-02-08 05:49:38

Before I wrote my rant yesterday, I was trying to think of one rural dweller
(and by that I mean provide their own water) who was a real wastrel. I
couldn’t think of one. But I’m sure there are some.

I’d quibble on that one.
i offer you the

I think that they think they play an important role but I reckon they’re as
effective and useful as t*** on a bull.

Gotta go, someone else needs the ‘puter.

Merry Xmas Kylie and to all other regualrs of the ng.

Jonno 2012-02-08 05:50:26

You hafta admit, this makes all you sophisticated know it all “prove it
to me types”
stop drinking and start asking ” what is happening” I’ll tell you” the
sky is fallin”